Electronics chain BCC wants to limit store assortment in order to regain profits

Electronics chain BCC is taking a number of measures to ensure that it no longer runs at a loss. For example, a quarter of the 190 employees at the head office have been dismissed and the company wants to significantly reduce the range in its 57 stores.

Source: BCC

BCC wants to reduce its store range and differentiate it more from the competition, says BCC CEO Caspar Klinkhamer against the Financieel Dagblad. The company mainly wants to reduce floor space at its larger stores. Klinkhamer wants to get rid of the large amount of space that is now reserved for dozens of washing machines, laptops and similar products.

Instead, he believes, there should be more room for ‘complex electronics’, because more margin can be achieved and because it has more ‘added value’. For example, he states that the stores in Utrecht and Veenendaal now have a ‘sustainability corner’ where customers can receive explanations about matters such as insulation, solar panels and charging stations.

Said earlier Klinkhamer stated during a keynote that he would prefer stores of 800 square meters instead of 2000, and no longer wants to display multiple ‘longtail products’. The full range must remain available online, with the idea being that a branch employee can help customers on the spot to make a choice from the larger online offering.

The aim of these measures is for BCC to break even in 2024. The company is currently making a loss. The latest known figures, for the financial year ending in January 2022, show that a net loss of 21 million was incurred. A new annual report with more recent figures has not yet been published. Klinkhamer attributes this loss partly to rising rent and personnel costs. Consumers have also purchased relatively few electronics lately, partly because they have already been supplied by purchasing new products en masse for working from home during the corona period.

Previously, in order to save costs, it was decided to close the BCC head office and move in with the parent company, Mirage Retail Group. The company’s own distribution center has also already been closed. BCC now uses Blokker’s distribution center instead.

Earlier late the company has already announced that it will terminate its collaboration with Wehkamp immediately. Previously, BCC products were available through that online store. Klinkhamer told the Financieel Dagblad that he had put an end to the collaboration because there would be ‘a wafer-thin margin’ on those products.